His Impossible Girl
by Woody Allen Jesus
Summary: It's Wednesday, and the Doctor is paying Clara a particularly special visit. He's spent ages perfecting her souffle recipe, and he's desperate to see her reaction. But there's a twist. Sad Whouffle angst. Please R&R.


The Doctor entered the small corner shop with a faint look over his shoulder. He knew he must stick out a mile, and it had been a long time since he'd needed to go shopping for anything the TARDIS had run out of. But then, he'd been running through baking supplies like crazy recently.

The reason for that was that the Doctor had been doing his best to recreate a perfect Oswald soufflé. He and Clara had often passed days together toiling to recreate her mother's recipe. Both their efforts had usually been horrendous, at best managing to conjure up a dessert that was just about edible. But the Doctor had been practising, had been baking soufflé after soufflé for what felt like forever. Today was Wednesday, his and Clara's day, and today, he felt, just might be the day he could get one right, and surprise his companion with it.

He collected in his ingredients. The woman at the counter looked terribly exasperated with his demeanour, but he paid and left the shop to return to his ship. Walking the familiar pathway to the TARDIS kitchen gave him time to picture what he wished Clara's reaction would be. In his mind, she'd play it casual and sarcastic, act as if she wasn't too impressed, but her real feelings would be clear, and he'd know she was truly touched. That's what his fantasy was.

Unlikely, he knew. But he had to stay optimistic.

In a well-rehearsed manner, the Doctor assembled his soufflé. He took the utmost care over each and every touch, rereading the recipe until he felt as if it were imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, double-checking every measurement was exactly right. Finally, he put it in the oven feeling as if he couldn't have done things any better. Now he just had to wait. Wait, and hope that this worked.

He watched the clock with militant zeal, just in case the timer he'd set hadn't been quite right. As it turned out, it had been out by nearly two seconds. That was an unforgivable error. The Doctor rushed over to open the oven door, carefully extracting the tray and setting it on the countertop. It looked… perfect. Really, perfect. Just the right amount of crisp, utterly unspoiled on top, even just the right shape. He felt his two hearts soar. Maybe this would be the day. The day he could impress her, his impossible girl who took everything on their travels so much in her stride. Just maybe.

Carefully, the Doctor set it on a large plate, which he placed on a tray alongside a cake knife. He carefully carried both down the hall, along another familiar path, until he was at the door he now knew like the back of his hand. Setting the tray down for a moment, he gently pushed it open.

The room was just as it always was. Neat, tidy, undisturbed. But for the slight crumple in the sheets on the bed, nobody would know anyone had been in here. Tentatively, the Doctor carried in the tray and set it down on the bedside table, then turned to the bed. On it, eyes closed, breathing just a little shallower today, was Clara.

"Hey, Clara." He bent down and kissed her forehead lightly. "I brought you a soufflé. Happy Wednesday."

She didn't respond. Business as usual, then.

Well did the Doctor recall the day they'd spent on Trenzalore. How he'd led her down below the planet's surface, in a walk to what he'd feared was his own grave. How the Great Intelligence had come upon them, threatening to destroy his time stream forever. How Clara had stepped forwards, headstrong and fearless as ever, and had stepped in to save him. He'd thought he might never see her again, but after desperately searching had caught up with her. She'd been weak, shattered, crushed under the burden of saving his life countless times. He'd held her, reassured her, told her she'd be alright. When she'd fallen unconscious, he'd scooped her up into his arms, carried her back to the TARDIS, and waited for her to wake up.

Except she never had.

She was still alive. Her heart still beat, she still breathed. Clara wasn't dead by any means. But her eyes never opened, and she never responded to her surroundings. Even when the Doctor tried to access her thoughts, he found them too muddled and fragmented to make sense of. She'd been broken, torn apart and sent throughout his time stream as echoes of herself, and now the real her couldn't recover from it.

Or so it seemed. So everyone had told him. But the Doctor wouldn't give up. He'd never give up on Clara. Clara could do anything. She'd overcome obstacles that nobody else could have overcome. And that meant she could overcome this too. Somewhere deep within her was the girl he'd travelled with, fighting to get out. He knew it. So he was going to stay with her, and keep trying to wake her up until she was free.

The Doctor cut a slice out of the soufflé and set it on a smaller plate on its own. The smell of fresh baking filled the room. _Please work,_ he prayed. _Please, just notice. It's your mother's recipe, Clara. I did it just right this time._

But she didn't stir, and her eyes stayed shut. Just like they always did. Just like they had for the last two years.

So the Doctor gave up for the day. He'd try and come up with something else. In the meantime, he just lay down beside her and pulled her gently into his arms. Her left arm was connected to an intravenous drip which stood beside the bed. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything for herself in two years. Those in the medical profession had warned that if she ever did wake up, she'd probably never be able to go back to living a normal life, her body would be too wasted away. Those doctors didn't know Clara like he did. She could survive anything. She was his impossible girl, and that meant she could do impossible things.

He talked to her softly as he held her there against him. He told her about how the world was going. He checked in on how time would have been progressing in her life all the time. Angie and Artie had just finished their GCSEs, and had done pretty well by all accounts. Novak Djokovic had lost the final of the French Open to Stan Wawrinka. No Grand Slam for him, then. He talked to her for what felt like hours, watching her as ever for any sign of response. But aside from the odd little move in her sleep, she stayed just as she was.

He'd done everything he could have. He'd put on Clara's favourite programmes and movies, sat on the bed with her whilst they played in the background, hoping some familiar sound might get to her. He'd taken her back in the TARDIS to everywhere they'd travelled before she'd ended up like this, in the faint hope that the familiar breath-taking settings might trigger some response in her mind. He'd played music, read to her, put the news on in case inside her head she was bored and wanted to know what was going on in the world. All these things had failed. He still did them all, though. Not because he expected them to wake her up. Just because he thought she might enjoy them.

Finally he just broke down in tears. "Please, Clara," he begged, looking down at her pale, porcelain face onto which his teardrops were now falling. "Please wake up. I need you. I can't live without you. I won't tease you for being short anymore. I won't get impatient when you don't understand space jargon. We'll go wherever you want to, we'll do whatever you want. Just wake up. Please. _Please…_ "

She remained unmoved. The Doctor held her whilst he sobbed uncontrollably, feeling his hearts both break just a little more each time he looked at her, still and silent and lifeless. "Please, Clara," he whispered. "I love you. Please wake up."

But she couldn't hear him. And even if she could, what could she do about it?

So at last he got up to leave. His lips were dry after weeping for so long, but he placed a tender kiss on her forehead before he left, just as he always did. He threw the rest of the soufflé in the trash and made his way towards the door.

"Doctor."

He froze. That was Clara's voice. Slowly, hardly daring to believe it, he turned back to her. That was her voice. She was awake, she was alright again, everything was going to be fine-

Except she wasn't. She was still lying there, unconscious and motionless. She still dreamt, he was sure of it. Still saw something as she slept. She'd say the odd word, every now and then, whilst she was still asleep. Just single words, isolated and with no context. Not very often. Just enough to get his hopes up now and then.

Sighing, the Doctor flicked off the light and left the room. "Goodnight, Clara," he said softly.

But only silence greeted him. Nobody would reply to him. Without her, he was alone.


End file.
